


Human, all too human: Sherlock Meta Series on Mythology and Continental Philosophy

by sherlockedaspergirl



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Camus - Freeform, Gen, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Meta, Nietzsche, Tragedy, philosophy of science
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-14 16:51:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1273915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherlockedaspergirl/pseuds/sherlockedaspergirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meta series that explores Greek tragic themes in BBC Sherlock and how Nietzsche's ideas of Eternal Reccurance of the Same and the Übermensch relate to and support these themes. Begins with a discussion of prophecy as it functions in the text of the show. Identifies Jim Moriarty as funtioning as both prophet and god. Goes on to explain how the overarching parallels between episodes also funtion as prophecy through the use of Eternal Reccurance of the Same. Still a WIP. Further concepts to be explored include knowing vs not-knowing, the übermensch, hubris, will to power, overcoming the übermensch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Moriarty as Prophet

So I had a long conversation a couple weeks ago with my husband about Sherlock, Greek Tragedy, Prophesy, Camus, Nietzsche (Eternal recurrence of the same, Ubermensch, The Abyss, etc.) and I just wanted so badly to put the whole thing in a big coherent meta series before unleashing it upon tumblr so that you would all see my brilliance and learn a lot about philosophy and worship me and I would understand everything, and achieve enlightenment and sublimate into pure energy and go streaking across the universe in bliss and then I realized. That was never going to happen. Breathe. One thing at a time ok? Ok. I’m new to fandom and I am new to tumblr and I am really new to meta (the only one I’ve done before is this little thing [ here ](http://sherlockedaspergirl.tumblr.com/post/77454147264/each-frame-tells-a-story-rooftop-fall) , it’s an [ Each Frame Tells a Story ](http://mid0nz.tumblr.com/post/77174883122/im-starting-a-new-meta-series-called-each-frame-tells) post about parallels with _City of Angels_ ).

I’m just going to talk about Prophecy. I’m going to try and give you a glimpse, just a teensy glimpse of what I’ve got going on up here in this big bad brain of mine.

First I think It would be helpful to explain a little about how prophecy works in Greek tragedy, that it is more than just foreshadowing, it has some other very specific elements that make it more interesting than that.

Describing the practice of religious prophets, Heraclitus says, “The Lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither reveals nor conceals, but gives a sign”. This is a very important aspect of prophecy. This giving a sign is like leaving a clue. Perfect for a detective story. I will argue that Jim is a prophet in all the tragic senses of the concept.

 

> SHERLOCK: So how’re you going to do it …. burn me?
> 
> JIM (softly): Oh, that’s the problem – the final problem. Have you worked out what it is yet? What’s the final problem? **I did tell you** … (sing-song but still softly) … **but did you listen**?

My reading of this, gleaned from others, is that the sign he gave was the ringtone “Staying Alive”, and the Final Problem is, as Camus says, “The only serious question in life is whether to kill yourself or not.” Shakespeare expressed the same sentiment when he had Hamlet ask “To be or not to be, that is the question.” Sherlock is fuckin’ deep, amirite?

So in terms of prophecy, the ringtone did not reveal to Sherlock that Moriarty was dealing with this “only serious question” aka “the Final Problem”, but did not conceal it either. He gave a sign, a clue, both to Sherlock and to the audience, so that later we might go “aha!” At the time we, the audience, took it (or were allowed to take it) at face value - Staying Alive is playing, so it must be the “wrong day to die.” It seemed to apply only to that moment, everyone stays alive right now and lives to fight another day. Heraclitus says again that of prophecy, or logos, “forever do men prove to be uncomprehending, both before they hear and once they have heard it”. Sherlock berates people for seeing but failing to observe. Here Jim berates him for hearing but failing to listen. But some things must be experienced, foreknowledge is as good as useless.

Another very important aspect of prophecy in Greek tragedy is that it is inevitable. There is NOTHING that will change the course of events once a prophecy is uttered. Attempting to escape from a prophecy will inevitably bring it about, often because it was misunderstood in the first place. A quintessential illustration of this phenomenon is found in Oedipus. You may be familiar with the story already, but for those that aren’t, Oedipus’s father heard a prophecy that Oedipus would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. Obviously, this would suck for all involved, so the father, trying to avoid this outcome, sent Oedipus away to live with another family. Eventually, a grown-up Oedipus heard the same prophecy about himself. He didn’t want to do that, obviously, so thinking the people who raised him were his father and mother, he decided to get as far away from both of them as possible. Which brought him back in contact with his real father and mother so that the prophecy could take it’s course, despite everyone doing their best to avoid the inevitable outcome. There is another, less overtly tragic example of the inevitability of prophecy in _The Matrix_ :

> The Oracle: What’s really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn’t said anything?

Though _The Matrix_ gets this aspect of Greek prophecy perfectly correct, the plot follows the more Christian pattern of use of prophecy in modern fiction where the thing that is prophesied is the person who will save mankind. We see this in _Star Wars, The Matrix,_ _Harry Potter_ , and many others. But Greek prophecy is different. It usually has to do with death or heartbreak or both, not salvation. I feel that when Jim tells us in response to the comment that people have died, “That’s what people DO”, **he establishes himself as a prophet in the most essential Greek tragic sense**. The true tragedy and the real concept of fate behind prophecy is the understanding that people die. We know in our own lives that we are mortal, but refuse to understand, both before we hear and after we have heard. I expect to come back to that concept in later meta.

So how is this inevitability of prophecy relevant to Sherlock? The next prophecy by Jim I would like to discuss is:

> JIM: **I’ll burn you. I’ll burn the heart out of you.**

  


I feel that Sherlock misunderstands this threat/prophecy, which leads to the fulfillment of it. As Sherlock later tries to do with Magnussen and opium, I think that in TRF, Sherlock is trying to give Jim a target from which to hurt him that does not actually matter to Sherlock. His reputation is irrelevant to Sherlock. If other people think he is stupid, it just means that they are stupid. He does not like or enjoy fame, and it gets in the way of his work. He carefully sets up a target (his reputation) for Jim to destroy, because he knows that Jim won’t stop until he feels he has won. Jim of course appears to take the bait (Sir-Boast-a-Lot video) and destroys Sherlock’s reputation, but he knows that this is not “burning the heart out of him”. I don’t actually believe that Sherlock and Mycroft were 15 steps ahead of Jim, and feel that there are parts of Lazarus that are still missing or obscured. But I do firmly believe that the build up of Sherlock’s reputation was done deliberately to draw Jim out, and cause him to make his move. The fact that he tries the same tactic again later on Magnussen shows that he does not yet realize how spectacularly it failed with Jim. We have watched throughout season 3 as Sherlock’s heart is burned out of him. Being away from his friends for 2 years could have been the meaning of the threat, or the choice between dying with his friends thinking he was a fraud and living as his friends died. But it was none of these. By faking his death, Sherlock believed he has outsmarted the threat/prophecy. Of course he suffered, willingly even, but he was sure by the end of the 2 years he would come back to London with his heart (his relationship with John) still intact. But one cannot escape a prophecy, one cannot outsmart fate.  

So having spoken about the prophecies I understand, because they have already come true, or begun to come true (there may be more heart burning to endure), and keeping in mind that Jim is a prophet and prophecies are inevitable, let’s talk about one I am not sure about:

> JIM: Kill you? N-no, don’t be obvious. I mean, **I’m gonna kill you anyway some day**. I don’t wanna rush it, though. I’m saving it up for something special.

Has this prophecy been fulfilled? If Mary is working for Jim, it may very well have been, as Sherlock flatlined from Mary’s bullet. Being killed by the woman that replaced you in the affections of your soulmate would definitely count as something special. And well over two years after the threat is uttered doesn’t seem like rushing it. Sherlock _must_ be killed by Moriarty, the prophecy _will_ be fulfilled, and Moriarty knows this, which is why he says he _owes_ Sherlock. I would really like people’s opinion of this, because knowing this killing is inevitable, I think it would be helpful to know if it has happened already or not. For our boys’ sakes, I hope so, and that’s going to be my interpretation, until further notice, but in a later meta, I might elucidate why I still have my doubts. Depending how I feel about it by then.

I think the show creators are using prophecy in an absolutely masterful way in this show and because of all the Christ and angel text and subtext, I also believe (and hope desperately) that we will not be left ultimately with a tragedy, but with a story of redemption. Mycroft also seems to act as a prophet when he elucidates that we are dealing with “The promise of love, the pain of loss, **the** **joy of redemption** ”. And so I choose to believe that redemption is the endgame. Just because a heart is burned, does not mean that Sherlock can not rise from the ash, as he has already resurrected more than once. (And he knows ash. Don’t tell him he doesn’t.) The genius of the show will be in showing how tragedy and redemption can coexist.

Thanks for reading. Anticipate future posts on: Nietzche’s “Eternal Recurrence of the Same” and Fate, The difference between Sherlock’s two deaths and resurrections, Hubris as a tragic flaw and the science of cheating death, the Ubermensch or Outlaw and Sherlock’s antiheroes and villains. If the gods allow, cuz I don’t yet know how those will go, but these are topics I am currently stoked about.


	2. Moriarty as Two-Faced God

So I recently posted [this meta](http://sherlockedaspergirl.tumblr.com/post/77864244179/moriarty-as-prophet) about how the things that Jim says can be taken as prophecies in the pattern of Greek tragedy wherein prophecies are inescapable once uttered. But I would like to now show how it actually goes much further than that, and Moriarty is not merely a messenger of the gods as prophets are, but is in fact a god himself. His prophecies are still infallible in this reading, but his own role in Sherlock’s story is explained much more fully by this understanding.

Our first indication that Jim could be a god comes along with the very first mention of him, by Jeff Hope, the cabbie:

> SHERLOCK: Who’d sponsor a serial killer?
> 
> JEFF: Who’d be a fan of Sherlock ’olmes? You’re not the only one to enjoy a good murder. There’s others out there just like you,  **except you’re just a man … and they’re so much more than that.**
> 
> SHERLOCK:  **What d’you mean, _more_ than a man?** An organisation? What?
> 
> JEFF:  **There’s a name no-one says** , an’ I’m not gonna say it either. Now, enough chatter. Time to choose.

So we already know that Moriarty is more than a man. In answer to what that means, we are told that no one says his name, which is great for a mystery story, but it also echoes the taboo of saying the name of God. It takes a lot to get the name out of Jeff, what really amounts to torture. Whose name has so much power it can’t be said?

**Moriarty’s Prophets**

In The Great Game, Moriarty does something very strange in order to communicate with Sherlock what puzzles he wants him to solve. WHY does he speak through other voices? It is creepy, sure, and he is insane, we get that, but it does add an extra layer of danger to Moriarty if he is an ordinary mortal, as we see when he responds to possible exposure by killing one of them. He has an untraceable phone in Sherlock’s hands, why doesn’t he just text? Sherlock and The Yard wouldn’t risk disbelieving that he had bombs ready to go off, he’s already set one off across from 221B. I believe this choice is setting up the idea of prophecy in the narrative. For this analysis, I have read through the conversations that Sherlock has with each prophet. I didn’t find any immutable prophecies, that is predictions of the future, in this context. The threats he makes through these prophets are “if” statements, so Sherlock can avoid them by solving the puzzle. Well, most of them. But there are other bits of communication that happen that are rather interesting.

Prophet 1

The first prophet is a woman. Much of the conversation is spent explaining the strange situation of people acting as Jim’s mouthpiece. But the first thing that Jim says to Sherlock here is of note. It is the first thing Jim ever says to him in any context.

> SHERLOCK: Hello?
> 
> WOMAN’s VOICE:  **H-hello … sexy.**
> 
> SHERLOCK: Who’s this?
> 
> WOMAN’s VOICE: I’ve … sent you … a little puzzle … just to say hi.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Who’s talking? Why are you crying?
> 
> WOMAN’s VOICE: I-I’m not … crying … I’m typing … and this … stupid … bitch … is reading it out.
> 
> SHERLOCK ( _softly_ ): The curtain rises.
> 
> JOHN: What?
> 
> SHERLOCK: Nothing.
> 
> JOHN: No, what did you mean?
> 
> SHERLOCK: I’ve been expecting this for some time.
> 
> WOMAN: Twelve hours to solve … my puzzle, Sherlock … or I’m going … to be … so naughty.
> 
> —————————-after the crime is solved————————
> 
> WOMAN: Well done, you. Come and get me.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Where  _are_  you? Tell us where you are.

That’s right. “Hello, sexy.” This is pretty ominous in and of itself. If you are at all versed in Greek mythology you know that attracting the sexual attention of one of the gods is not likely to work out well for any mortal.

Prophet 2

The young man who acts as Jim’s second prophet has a few important things so say. The first is that he starts a conversation later resumed by prophet!John at the pool. The second is a clue or as I spoke of in the last meta, a prophetic sign.

> SHERLOCK: Hello?
> 
> YOUNG MAN: It’s okay that you’ve gone to the police.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Who is this? Is this you again?
> 
> YOUNG MAN: But don’t rely on them. Clever you, guessing about Carl Powers. I never liked him.  **Carl laughed at me, so I stopped him laughing.**
> 
> SHERLOCK: And you’ve stolen another voice, I presume.
> 
> YOUNG MAN: This is about you and me.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Who  _are_  you? What’s that noise?
> 
> YOUNG MAN: The sounds of life, Sherlock. But don’t worry … I can soon fix that. You solved my last puzzle in nine hours. This time you have eight.
> 
> —————————-later during the investigation————————
> 
> SHERLOCK: Hello?
> 
> YOUNG MAN:  **The clue’s in the name. Janus Cars.**
> 
> SHERLOCK: Why would you be giving me a clue?
> 
> YOUNG MAN: Why does anyone do anything? Because I’m bored.  **We were _made_ for each other, Sherlock.**
> 
> SHERLOCK: Then talk to me in your own voice.
> 
> YOUNG MAN : Patience.
> 
> —————————-after the crime is solved————————
> 
> YOUNG MAN: He says you can come and fetch me. Help. Help me, please.

“The clue’s in the name. Janus Cars.” What is this a clue to? The case ostensibly, but Sherlock doesn’t need that clue at all. He is past that point in solving the case, it doesn’t actually tell him anything he doesn’t already know or about to figure out in short order. The audience hasn’t caught up perhaps, but Jim has to know that Sherlock doesn’t need this clue to save the young man and the innocent bystanders. So who is Janus? A Roman god. Two faced. Sooooooo changeable. Janus is the god of opening doors. Jim later shows us that he has the key to unlock any door. He doesn’t need a computer code because he is Janus. The clue is in the name. Janus is the god of beginnings, transitions, and endings. Might he signal a major transition for Sherlock any time they interact face to face?

let’s revisit this part knowing the clue is in the name:

> SHERLOCK: Who  _are_  you? What’s that noise?
> 
> YOUNG MAN: The sounds of life, Sherlock. But don’t worry … I can soon fix that.

It appears that he answers only the second question here, but he actually answers both. Who are you? I am the sounds of life and the one that can fix that. I am life and death, the two faced god. I am Janus.

And then we have, “We were  _made_  for each other, Sherlock.” they were made for each other like Janus masks, the comedy/tragedy masks of theatre. They share one head, one mind: “Everything I have to say has already crossed your mind!” ”Probably my answer has crossed yours.” This is the beginning of Moriarty trying to convince Sherlock that they are the same, that he should be a god, too. Moriarty will continue this seduction of Sherlock, this attempt to make him into his own image through season two (and if he is back now, we may see him try again in season four). Sherlock’s struggle, as I intend to argue in subsequent meta, is to learn to choose humanity over being a god.

Prophet 3

Prophet number three is where the concept of prophecy gets really clear. If we didn’t read “prophet” in these exchanges before, we really ought to by now. This one is BLIND. The archetype of the blind prophet or seer is well known. And it is due to the woman’s blindness that she acquires special knowledge of the god for whom she is speaking.

> SHERLOCK: Hello?
> 
> OLD WOMAN: This one … is a bit … defective. Sorry.  **She’s blind** **.**  This is … a funny one. I’ll give you … twelve hours.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Why are you doing this?
> 
> OLD WOMAN:  **I like … to watch you … dance.**
> 
> ————————later during the investigation————————
> 
> OLD WOMAN:  **You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?**  Joining the … dots. Three hours: boom … boom.
> 
> —————————-after the crime is solved————————
> 
> OLD WOMAN:  _Help_  me.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Tell us where you are. Address.
> 
> OLD WOMAN:  **He was so … His voice …**
> 
> SHERLOCK: No, no, no, no. Tell me nothing about him.  _Nothing_.
> 
> OLD WOMAN:  **He sounded so … soft.**
> 
> _(The laser point from the sniper’s rifle moves onto the bomb. A single shot fires and the phone instantly goes dead.)_
> 
> SHERLOCK: Hello?

This is the first we hear of watching Sherlock dance, but not the last. Dancing becomes a growing theme in the series by season three. There is probably a lot to be said about it and it could have it’s own meta, which I will let someone else write. What I am going to take from it right now is that it is another sexual innuendo. Sherlock’s puzzle solving dance is often rather orgasmic. We know from the wedding that Sherlock loves dancing. He also loves the Great Game until it puts his loved ones in danger.

Prophet 4

There is not much I could get from the actual text of the fourth prophet, as it consists of nothing but a countdown and “Please. Is somebody there? Somebody help me!” I’ve still copied it here in case anyone else can get any insights from it. But children often act as prophets in fiction, just as blind elderly women do. And Janus is also a god of time, so a countdown is fitting for his prophet.

> SHERLOCK: Okay, I’ll prove it. Give me time. Will you give me time?
> 
> BOY’s VOICE: Ten …
> 
> LESTRADE: It’s a kid. Oh, God, it’s a  _kid_!
> 
> JOHN: What did he say?
> 
> SHERLOCK: “Ten.”
> 
> BOY’s VOICE: Nine …
> 
> SHERLOCK: It’s a countdown. He’s giving me time.
> 
> LESTRADE: Jesus!
> 
> SHERLOCK: The painting is a fake, but how can I prove it? How? _How?_
> 
> BOY’s VOICE: Eight …
> 
> SHERLOCK: This kid will die.  _Tell_  me why the painting is a fake.  _Tell me!_
> 
> BOY’s VOICE: Seven …
> 
> SHERLOCK: No, shut up. Don’t say anything. It only works if I figure it out. Must be possible. Must be staring me in the face.
> 
> BOY’s VOICE: Six …
> 
> JOHN: Come  _on_.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Woodbridge knew, but  _how_?
> 
> BOY’s VOICE: Five …
> 
> LESTRADE: It’s speeding up!
> 
> JOHN: Sherlock.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Oh!
> 
> BOY’s VOICE: Four …
> 
> SHERLOCK: In the planetarium! You heard it too. Oh, that is brilliant! That is gorgeous!
> 
> BOY’s VOICE: Three …
> 
> JOHN:  _What’s_  brilliant?  _What_  is?
> 
> SHERLOCK: This is beautiful. I love this!
> 
> BOY’s VOICE: Two …
> 
> LESTRADE:  _Sherlock!_
> 
> SHERLOCK: The Van Buren Supernova!
> 
> BOY’s VOICE: Please. Is somebody there? Somebody help me!

If you are someone who likes to watch Sherlock dance, this interaction certainly resulted in a lovely performance.

Prophet 5

Which brings us to the pool scene. Very shortly, Jim will speak for himself, and really get down to the prophecies that run the show. But first he can’t resist making Sherlock feel that his best friend has betrayed him, followed by taunting him with the fact that he has turned John Watson into a ventriloquist’s dummy.

> JOHN: Evening. This is a turn-up, isn’t it, Sherlock?
> 
> SHERLOCK: John. What the hell …?
> 
> JOHN: Bet you never saw  _this_  coming. What … would you like me … to make him say … next? Gottle o’ geer … gottle o’ geer … gottle o’ geer.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Stop it.
> 
> JOHN: Nice touch, this: the pool where little Carl died.  **I stopped him. I can stop John Watson too. Stop his heart.**
> 
> SHERLOCK: Who  _are_  you?

And finally finishes the conversation he started through the young man prophet. Putting it together it runs like this, “Clever you, guessing about Carl Powers. I never liked him. Carl laughed at me, so I stopped him laughing. I stopped him. I can stop John Watson too. Stop his heart.” He does not say he _will_  stop his heart so it is not an immutable prophecy, but rather a declaration of his godlike power to decide who lives and who dies. Sherlock’s response is “Who  _are_  you?” Who are you that you have the power of life and death? And now that he is showing the proper respect, he is finally allowed to see the god face to face.

—-

So thanks for reading and I want to thank my husband because most of these things came out of his brain, mine just swished them around with things I know about the show. And I need to thank [stephisanerd ](http://stephisanerd.tumblr.com/)for being all excited about her own meta in my inbox so we could electronically hold hands while jumping up and down together about how good this show is. She inspired me to post meta at all. Follow her and read her stuff, she’s recently written about paradox and she has lots of great things brewing about stories and liminality and it’s gonna be pretty damn fascinating. And for this particular post I should also thank [don-gately](http://don-gately.tumblr.com/) for giving me the tiny little link to the things that were already in my head about how this all works. I don’t know if you were trying to do that, but you were a conductor of light. (Not that I think I am a genius guys, I really don’t, I am just messing around and having tons of fun.) The transcript I used for the quotes is [here](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/46716.html). I took out most of the stage direction to focus on the dialogue. And guys, I haven’t even mentioned Nietszche yet. But oh, lordy we are going to go there. And it’s going to be beautiful.


	3. Suicidal Seductions and Eternal Recurrence of the Same

This is now part 3 of a meta series that begins with [Moriarty as Prophet](http://sherlockedaspergirl.tumblr.com/post/77864244179/moriarty-as-prophet) and continues with [Moriarty as Two-Faced God](http://sherlockedaspergirl.tumblr.com/post/77987704915/moriarty-as-two-faced-god). I am now going to introduce Nietzsche’s concept of Eternal Recurrence of the Same (often abbreviated as Eternal Recurrence or Eternal Return, but I’m going to use ERotS, becauseof the same is important, and should not be skipped over). In doing so, this is the first meta that introduces Nietzsche specifically (helpful tip, it’s pronounced Nee-chuh, not Nee-chee), but he also wrote at length about greek tragedy, and so heavily influences my understanding of tragedy and this entire meta series. There are tons of examples of ERotS in  _Sherlock_ , and most meta writers refer to these as callbacks or parallels. I am going to focus on an extended example that I have seen linked, but not thoroughly explored - the recurrence of Sherlock’s interaction with Jeff Hope echoed in the Reichenbach rooftop scene.

  


**Eternal Recurrence of the Same**

Nietzsche did not originate the idea of Eternal Recurrence of the Same, it is a concept found in Indian philosophy and others, by other names, but it is Nietzsche’s evolution of it that shapes my own understanding, and he developed this and other ideas in ways that continue to be relevant to my reading of  _Sherlock_. Eternal Recurrence of the Same and Fate, tragic or otherwise, are inexorably linked. So what exactly is the concept of Eternal Recurrence of the Same?

> What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!”
> 
> Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?… Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?
> 
> \- Nietzsche - The Gay Science

The Eternal Recurrence of the Same is a kind of thought experiment. If your life must be lived over and over again, always exactly the same, would that be your greatest terror, or your greatest joy? If the universe was to repeat ad-infinitum, we could look to everything that has happened before as a prophecy of what will happen next. If recurrence is inevitable, that is a kind of Fate. We have a cultural understanding of this in our saying “history repeats itself”. ERotS is an expression that we must undergo the same travails forever. You may recall the mythological character of Sisyphus, who was compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this action forever. This eternal task is a punishment in the original story, but N says that this drudgery is merely the inescapable conditions of life. The horror of the punishment is that of watching the work undone, over and over again, because humans have an inherent need for meaning. Sisyphus is so important to Sherlock, because to me Sisyphus (and ERotS) represents the root cause of Boredom, the huge destructive force in Sherlock’s (and Jim’s) life. N’s answer is that the truth is that all things are meaningless in exactly the way invoked by the myth of Sisyphus (he is known as a nihilist, after all), that life, in its endlessly repeating cycles is meaningless in and of itself, BUT that each person can imbue the task with her own meaning. I have a lot more to say about what N has to say about meaning, the meanings that we are given and the meanings that we make, but I have to stop now, because I am trying to focus on only ERotS and not get to distracted in this meta (which is already threatening to become very long) to other Nietzschean topics.

We have established that Jim is also Janus. Janus has two faces the same, one looking forward, and one looking back. This image can indicate the echoing of the past in the future, and the future in the past. Eternal cycles. So why do I believe that ERotS is happening in Sherlock?

> SHERLOCK: There’s going to be a bomb on a passenger jet. The British and American governments know about it but rather than expose the source of that information they’re going to let it happen. The plane will blow up. Coventry all over again.  **The wheel turns. Nothing is ever new.**

I believe Sherlock’s line here is meant to direct us toward looking for recurring cycles in the narrative. There are so many of these, once you start looking. Irene fakes her death with help from someone who can change death records (she knows what he likes). She then fakes her death again, this time with Sherlock’s help. Then Sherlock fakes his death with Molly’s help with the death records (he is what she likes). Then it turns out Jim’s death is faked. Cycles. Sherlock cooperates in his own death to complete Jim’s story but does not die, and then Sholto threatens to cooperate in  _his_  own death to complete what Jonathan Small/Mayfly Man began, he is convinced (by Sherlock, who knows from experience)  _not_  to participate, and he does not die either. Cycles. A USB drive of secrets is destroyed twice by the person to whom it is given without being viewed - first, the one containing the Bruce Partington Plans is thrown into the pool by Jim, and then A.G.R.A. is thrown into the fire by John. Cycles. The wheel turns. Nothing is ever new.

**Suicidal Seductions**

I am going to go a lot further now into one very large and important example. You may recall that (according to my reading) the Final Problem in Sherlock is the same as Camus’s “only serious question in life” - whether to kill yourself or not. Stayin’ Alive is just… staying… Boredom. To be or not to be? Is Boredom and repetition worse than death? You have probably noticed by now that more than once, someone has tried to talk Sherlock into taking his own life.

> JEFF: I don’t wanna kill you, Mr. ’olmes. I’m gonna talk to yer … and then you’re gonna  **kill yourself**.
> 
> ——————————————————-
> 
> JIM: Oh, just **kill yourself** **.**  It’s a lot less effort.

But the similarities go much further than that. Let’s look at each “suicide seduction” scene side-by-side, so we can see how far this comparison goes.

First, John and all others are left out of the confrontation. In ASiP, Sherlock walks away from the drugs bust team, Greg, John, and Mrs. Hudson, telling them he is going out for air. In TRF, Sherlock arranges for John to be called away, and again, tells no one where he is going. Second, in both encounters, Sherlock has his choice in terms of the location of the confrontation.

> **ASIP**
> 
> JEFF: Well, what do you think? It’s up to you. You’re the one who’s gonna die ’ere.
> 
> **TRF**
> 
> JIM: Glad you chose a tall building – nice way to do it.

Sherlock’s seducer tries to relate to Sherlock as a genius in opposition to the rest of the goldfish of the world, but eventually turns to berating Sherlock as being one of the goldfish, each villain totally assured of his own imminent success at beating the detective.

> **ASIP**
> 
> JEFF: Sherlock ’olmes. Look at you! ’Ere in the flesh. That website of yours: your fan told me about it.
> 
> SHERLOCK: My fan?
> 
> JEFF:  **You are brilliant. You are. A proper genius** **.**  “The Science of Deduction.” Now that is proper thinking. Between you and me sitting ’ere,  **why can’t people think? Don’t it make you mad? Why can’t people just think?**
> 
> SHERLOCK: Oh, I see.  **So you’re a proper genius too.**
> 
> JEFF: Don’t look it, do I? Funny little man drivin’ a cab. But you’ll know better in a minute.  **Chances are it’ll be the last thing you ever know.**
> 
> ….
> 
> JEFF: Four people in a row? It’s not just chance.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Luck.
> 
> JEFF: It’s genius. I know ’ow people think. I know ’ow people think I think. I can see it all, like a map inside my ’ead.  **Everyone’s so stupid – even you.**  Or maybe God just loves me.
> 
> **TRF**
> 
> JIM:  **All my life I’ve been searching for distractions. You were the best distraction**  and now I don’t even have you. **Because I’ve beaten you.**  And you know what? In the end it was easy. It was easy. Now I’ve got to go back to playing with the ordinary people. **And it turns out you’re ordinary just like all of them.**
> 
> ….
> 
> JIM: No, no, no, no, no, this is too easy.  **This is too easy. There is no key, DOOFUS!**
> 
> ….
> 
> JIM:  **I’m disappointed in you, ordinary Sherlock.**

Then each gives Sherlock a choice, and not a very pleasant one. Janus is the god of choices, along with doorways and transitions.

> **ASIP**
> 
> SHERLOCK: Okay, two bottles. Explain.
> 
> JEFF:  **There’s a good bottle and a bad bottle. You take the pill from the good bottle, you live; take the pill from the bad bottle, you die.**
> 
> SHERLOCK: Both bottles are of course identical.
> 
> JEFF: In every way.
> 
> SHERLOCK: And you know which is which.
> 
> JEFF: Course I know.
> 
> SHERLOCK: But I don’t.
> 
> JEFF: Wouldn’t be a game if you knew. You’re the one who chooses.
> 
> **TRF**
> 
> JIM: Okay, let me give you a little extra incentive.  **Your friends will die if you don’t.**
> 
> SHERLOCK: John.
> 
> JIM: Not just John. Everyone.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Mrs Hudson.
> 
> JIM: Everyone.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Lestrade.
> 
> JIM: Three bullets; three gunmen; three victims.  **There’s no stopping them now. Unless my people see you jump.**  You can have me arrested; you can torture me; you can do anything you like with me; but nothing’s gonna prevent them from pulling the trigger. Your only three friends in the world will die … unless …
> 
> SHERLOCK: … unless I kill myself – complete your story.
> 
> JIM: You’ve gotta admit that’s sexier.

Next, after the villain believes he has backed Sherlock into a corner, is forcing him to take one of the two bad options, Sherlock regains the upper hand for a moment, and it seems that he will escape through a third option.

> **ASIP**
> 
> SHERLOCK: What if I don’t choose either? **I could just walk out of here.**
> 
> (Sighing in a combination of exasperation and disappointment, Jeff lifts up the pistol and points it at Sherlock.)
> 
> JEFF: You can take your fifty-fifty chance, or I can shoot you in the head. Funnily enough, no-one’s ever gone for that option.
> 
> SHERLOCK: I’ll have the gun, please.
> 
> JEFF: Are you sure?
> 
> SHERLOCK: Definitely. The gun.
> 
> JEFF: You don’t wanna phone a friend?
> 
> SHERLOCK: The gun.
> 
> (Jeff’s mouth tightens, and slowly he squeezes the trigger. A small flame bursts out of the end of the muzzle. Sherlock smiles smugly.)
> 
> SHERLOCK: I know a real gun when I see one.
> 
> JEFF: None of the others did.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Clearly. Well, this has been very interesting. I look forward to the court case.
> 
> **TRF**
> 
> (Slowly a smile spreads across his face and he starts to chuckle. Behind him, Jim is slowly walking across the roof but he stops, his expression livid, as Sherlock laughs with delight. Jim spins around furiously.)
> 
> JIM: What? What is it? What did I miss?
> 
> SHERLOCK: “You’re not going to do it.” So the killers can be called off, then – there’s a recall code or a word or a number. I don’t have to die … (his voice becomes sing-song) … if I’ve got you.
> 
> JIM: Oh! You think you can make me stop the order? You think you can make me do that?
> 
> SHERLOCK: Yes. So do you.
> 
> JIM: Sherlock, your big brother and all the King’s horses couldn’t make me do a thing I didn’t want to.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Yes, but I’m not my brother, remember? I am you – prepared to do anything; prepared to burn; prepared to do what ordinary people won’t do. You want me to shake hands with you in hell? I shall not disappoint you.
> 
> JIM: Naah. You talk big. Naah. You’re ordinary. You’re ordinary – you’re on the side of the angels.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Oh, I may be on the side of the angels, but don’t think for one second that I am one of them.
> 
> JIM: No, you’re not. I see. You’re not ordinary. No. You’re me. You’re me! Thank you!  Sherlock Holmes. Thank you. Bless you. As long as I’m alive, you can save your friends;  **you’ve got a way out.**
> 
>  

In the ASIP excerpt above, we are shown a gun, which turns out to be a fake. It impotently shoots forth a tiny flame, rather than a true explosion. In the TRF excerpt, we are about to be shown a gun again, for the briefest of moments.This gun will function in the same way. The trigger will be pulled, and the gun itself will cause no damage. It is a real gun, because Sherlock knows a real gun when he sees one, but the  _gunshot_  is still a fake. We have seen it before. Nothing is ever new. In both cases, the gun is what is meant to have the power to force Sherlock into making one of the two bad choices, rather than going the third way, the way which would be the real way out of the situation.

  


In the first case, Sherlock gets past the test of the gun, it does not fool him. But Jeff continues to tempt Sherlock, and it appears his addiction to not being bored will get the better of him until John saves the day. He is not sure the Sisyphean act of stayin’ alive is enough to hold his interest. Sherlock  knows there is a third option, a way out, but does not seem as if he will choose it.

By the rooftop scene, Sherlock is probably less of an idiot. He has something to live for, has created meaning through friendship, and is willing to take the way out, if he can see it. He is becoming less like Jim, less controlled by the problem of Boredom. But this time the gun, though actually impotent, does its job, that of forcing Sherlock into the dual choice, removing the third option (torturing the recall code out of Jim). I will probably be returning in later analysis to how the fake in  _Sherlock_  has power as long as it is  _believed_ in, as long as Sherlock has not disproved its realness. The gun is a clear example. Although all four of Jeff Hope’s victims were killed by poison, it was actually the fake gun that killed each of them, by taking away their choice to walk away. A fake item + belief has the power of a real item. (Another example is the Lost Vermeer. The painting was worth the same to Ms. Wenceslaus fake or real, as long as it was not disproved and seen for the fake it was. Richard Brook’s fake story gains its power from the public’s and law enforcement’s belief that it is true.) Fake and real are so big in this show, I will be writing more about them. In fact I already have - dummies and puppets are a beautiful example of the fake.

In both encounters the villain was willing to be completely in the game with Sherlock, to put his own life on the line. Jeff is prepared to swallow the other pill. Jim is prepared to shoot himself in the brain. It is the willingness of the other to participate that seduces Sherlock into participating in the game as well. In both scenes, Sherlock indicates his willingness to torture to get what he wants. And both times, the villain is shown at the end of the encounter, dead (or “dead”) from a gunshot wound, in a pool of blood.

These two important, dramatic, serious scenes of suicidal seduction represent ERotS, emphasizing the tragic, fatalistic aspect of the cyclical nature of life. But the wonderfulness of this show guys, is how we can never know if we are watching a tragedy or a comedy, nothing is sacred, and even the poignant crux of the whole show is fair game for lighthearted joking, for giggling at a crime scene.

> JOHN: So, did you just  **talk to him for a really long time**?
> 
> (Sherlock looks up and glances across to the body. We realise that it’s not a real person but a mannequin.)
> 
> SHERLOCK: Oh. **Henry Fishgard never committed suicide.**

This beautiful throwaway piece of banter, ostensibly unrelated to the plot of the episode does  _such amazing things_. We get another dummy (the mannequin), what is fake and what is real? We get John making a JOKE about the biggest, baddest thing in the series, the thing that will cause him years of grief, a person being talked into suicide. And we get the fact that Henry Fishgard, like Sherlock and Jim later in this same episode, never committed suicide. We have ERotS being treated as both tragic and comic. And that is the question that N poses. If life is cyclical and fated, is that a tragedy, or is it something joyful to be celebrated? Pain is inevitable. All lives end, all hearts are broken. All of life is a crime scene, but maybe we can find a way -  through human connection, through meaning that we create ourselves - to choose to giggle anyway. 

(once again, the dialogue is from [arianedevere](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/) so thank you! It would be pretty near impossible to write these meta without it.)


	4. Homicidal Standoffs and ERotS as Prophecy

This series is starting to really grow, faithful followers. This is part 4 and follows directly from [this meta](http://sherlockedaspergirl.tumblr.com/post/78572208305/suicidal-seductions-and-eternal-recurrence-of-the-same), but this one is less wordy, because I don’t introduce new philosophy concepts, only elaborate on those I have already talked about. The link that lists all the meta is [here](http://sherlockedaspergirl.tumblr.com/meta). I may end up having to write a book when all is said and done.

In Suicidal Seductions and Eternal Recurrence of the Same, I draw parallels between the climax scenes of ASiP and TRF. Due to [itwasntworkingforme](http://itwasntworkingforme.tumblr.com/)’s brilliantly insightful question, I have realized that the pool scene at the end of TGG prophesied the Appledore scene at the end of HLV in much the same fashion. I will use this insight to further show how Eternal Recurrence of the Same functions as a Prophecy, both in that what came before will inevitably return and can not be escaped, and in that characters “forever … prove to be uncomprehending, both before they hear and once they have heard it” or in this case, even experienced it.

**Homicidal Standoffs**

Now let’s look at the two climax scenes in which it is Sherlock, rather than his adversary, that pulls a gun. In both cases, it is John’s gun. John is also present from the beginning in these two scenes, unlike in the suicidal seductions, where he only shows up at the very climax.

Sherlock arranges each of these meetings,

> **TGG**
> 
> TEXT ON SCREEN: Found. The Bruce-Partington plans. Please collect. The Pool. Midnight.
> 
> **HVL**
> 
> MAGNUSSEN: And what are you giving me for Christmas, Mr Holmes?
> 
> SHERLOCK: My brother.

and he does so by tempting the villain with state secrets.

In both cases these bribes come from Mycroft, though in the case of the Bruce-Partington plans, only  indirectly, as SH found out about its existence through MH, but obtained it through detective work.

When he tries to give the villain the bargaining chip, in each case it is rejected. Jim kisses the drive, but then throws the it into the pool saying “Boring! I could have got them anywhere.” Magnussen at first caresses the laptop, but then states, “You know, I honestly expected something good.” Sherlock replies “Oh, I think you’ll find the contents of that laptop …” and is cut off with “… include a GPS locator.”

Each villain threatens Sherlock directly.

> **TGG**
> 
> JIM: Kill you? N-no, don’t be obvious. I mean, I’m gonna kill you anyway some day. I don’t wanna rush it, though. I’m saving it up for something special. No-no-no-no-no. If you don’t stop prying, I’ll burnyou. I’ll burn the heart out of you.
> 
> **HLV**
> 
> MAGNUSSEN: Sherlock Holmes has made one enormous mistake which will destroy the lives of everyone he loves … and everything he holds dear.
> 
> ——-
> 
> MAGNUSSEN: Let’s go outside. They’ll be here shortly. Can’t wait to see you arrested.

And each is manipulating and humiliating John Watson.

> **TGG**
> 
> JOHN: What … would you like me … to make him say … next? Gottle o’ geer … gottle o’ geer … gottle o’ geer.
> 
> **HLV**
> 
> MAGNUSSEN: Lean forward a bit and stick your face out. Please? Now, can I flick it? Can I flick your face? I just love doing this. I could do it all day.

When we come to the moment that Sherlock is pointing the gun, in each case, pulling the trigger means sacrificing himself as well. The gunshot, like in the two scenes I analyzed in  _Suicidal Seductions_ , is where the plots diverge.

> **TGG**
> 
> SHERLOCK: What if I was to shoot you now – right now?
> 
> JIM: Then you could cherish the look of surprise on my face. ’Cause I’d be surprised, Sherlock; really I would.
> 
> **HLV**
> 
> SHERLOCK: I’m not a hero … I’m a high-functioning sociopath. Merry Christmas!

Magnussen is surprised, too. He did not think that Sherlock would shoot and sacrifice himself, despite the fact that he had really left Sherlock with nothing to lose. He had Sherlock and John searched for weapons in their own flat, but not when they came to Appledore. His hubris caused him to severely underestimate his enemies. 

**Eternal Recurrence of the Same is Prophecy**

So we have two pairs of climax parallels, Suicide in ASiP/TRF and Homicide in TGG/HLV, with the homicides each being essentially a suicide as well. But despite matching up so perfectly, they diverge at the end, and the second brings the consequences escaped in the first. The first functions as a Prophecy for the second. Sherlock tells Magnussen “The fact that you know it’s going to happen isn’t going to stop it,” and that is exactly the point of the way that they have structured prophecy into this show, in actual predictions uttered, in prophetic signs, and in Eternal Recurrence of the Same. Because the times that Sherlock seems to escape consequences through  _deus ex machina_ , they are actually only delayed. The gods still  _owe_  him the conclusion of the events that have been begun, and knowing won’t prevent it.

Magnussen thinks that “It’s all about knowing. Knowing is owning”, but knowing will not save him, and owning is an illusion. Magnussen’s knowing is his downfall. My next essay will be on John as the personification of not-knowing, and how this is the only way forward in this tragic world where knowledge - and the illusion of control it brings with it - is so destructive.

As always, thanks go to [arianedevere](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/) for the transcripts. And as always, looking forward to your comments in the notes. Happy deducing.


	5. On a Need-to-Know Basis

This is another meta in [the Tragedy and Nietzsche series](http://sherlockedaspergirl.tumblr.com/meta). It is not perfect, but it is late, and I am done. I hope you all enjoy.

After writing about how [John is a Dummy](http://sherlockedaspergirl.tumblr.com/post/78180408804/each-frame-tells-a-story-have-a-gottle-o-geer-my), and how knowledge kills Magnussen, I have had a lot of thoughts about knowledge/information in Sherlock. It is the goal of this particular meta to explain how knowledge functions in the story and how it controls the characters’ motivations. My thesis is that Sherlock Holmes represents knowing as well as a burning need to know all the information, while John Watson represents not-knowing and the renunciation of knowledge in favor of more important things, like wisdom and love.

First of all, we have this:

This billboard was obviously quite deliberately set up to convey the message to the audience that INFORMATION IS POWER. It is a theme in the episode (HLV) as CAM uses the information of pressure points as a means to control people. It is made pretty obvious that that is what CAM does with his information. Why is the message related visually in this billboard to stare the viewer and John Watson in the face?

**Sherlock and his need to know and understand everything**

> SHERLOCK: I don’t know. **I don’t _like_ not knowing. ** Unlike the nicely embellished fictions on your blog, John, real life is rarely so neat. I don’t know who was behind all this, **but** **I _will_ find out, I promise you.**

Sherlock’s intellectual obsession is often compared to an addiction, and his substance addictions are miraculously cured when his real addiction is being indulged, as evidenced in this scene that occurs right after his nic-fit, and sniffing heavily as Henry Knight smokes in front of him:

> (John walks over to the mantelpiece and picks up the skull, taking a packet of cigarettes from underneath it. Putting the skull down again, he turns and tosses the packet across to Sherlock, who catches it and instantly tosses it over his shoulder.)
> 
> SHERLOCK: I don’t need those any more. I’m going to Dartmoor.

It is truly an addiction, because once he has taken a case, it becomes an obsession, and a case being left unsolved is quite painful to Sherlock.

> SHERLOCK (indignantly): **No, no, no, don’t mention the unsolved ones.**
> 
> JOHN: People want to know you’re human.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Why?
> 
> JOHN: ’Cause they’re interested.
> 
> SHERLOCK: No they’re not. Why are they?

Sherlock hates when John publishes unsolved cases, because he always still plans to solve them. The story is not complete until he has. He even solves cases that are decades or centuries old.

> SHERLOCK: Oh. Henry Fishgard never committed suicide.
> 
> (He picks up an old hardback book from the table and slams it shut in a flurry of dust before going back to his microscope.)
> 
> SHERLOCK: Bow Street Runners: missed everything.
> 
> JOHN: Pressing case, is it?
> 
> SHERLOCK: **They’re all pressing ’til they’re solved.**

He shares this obsession with Jim Moriarty. The need to know everything, to close the case, to finish the melody. When talking about it, he even _finishes Jim’s sentence_ about Bach.

> JIM: You know when he was on his death bed, Bach, he heard his son at the piano playing one of his pieces. The boy stopped before he got to the end …
> 
> SHERLOCK: … and the dying man jumped out of his bed, ran straight to the piano and finished it.
> 
> JIM: Couldn’t cope with an unfinished melody.
> 
> SHERLOCK: **Neither can you.** That’s why you’ve come.
> 
> JIM: But be honest: you’re just a tiny bit pleased.
> 
> SHERLOCK: What, with the verdict?
> 
> JIM: With me … back on the streets. Every fairytale needs a good old-fashioned villain. You need me, or you’re nothing. Because **we’re just alike, you and I** – except you’re boring.

Jim recognizes himself in Sherlock, and because he knows how much he hates not knowing, understands that Sherlock is the same way and goads him with it.

> JIM: How hard do you find it, having to say “I don’t know”?
> 
> (Sherlock puts his cup into its saucer and shrugs.)
> 
> SHERLOCK (nonchalantly): I dunno.
> 
> JIM: Oh, that’s clever; that’s very clever; awfully clever.

Brilliant minds are the ones tormented by the existential angst of stayin’ alive. Most people accept the pat answers provided by society in one form or another. In John’s case, Sherlock thinks, it is “queen and country.” For others it is religion or following the societal expectations of how things are normally done. Sherlock can get behind none of these.

> SHERLOCK: Oh, John, I envy you so much.
> 
> JOHN: You envy me?
> 
> SHERLOCK: **Your mind: it’s so placid** , straightforward, barely used. Mine’s like an engine, **racing out of control** ; a rocket **tearing itself to pieces trapped** on the launch pad.

This is what it feels like to need to know everything, and at the same time to see that others don’t have the same need. He really does envy John’s ability to have a placid mind. Sherlock can not rely on the answers that others take comfort in, the half-truths that his genius mind sees through so easily. And so he gazes into the abyss (the knowledge that life has no inherent meaning, the torture of stayin’ alive), and has no recourse from the pain of that emptiness than to fill it with facts and science, cases and solutions, but it is never enough, and it never really works.

> He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.
> 
> -Nietzche

Boredom, existential ennui, is the result of “gazing into the abyss” in Sherlock, and it is a tool Moriarty uses to try to tempt Sherlock to become a monster himself. He offers a way to fill the emptiness, and, perhaps, an end to the feeling of tearing himself to pieces, trapped on the launchpad.

> JEFF: But this … this is what you’re really addicted to, innit? You’d do anything … anything at all …to **stop being bored. You’re not bored now, are you?**

……

> JIM: Ah. Here we are at last – you and me, Sherlock, and our problem – the final problem. Stayin’ alive! It’s so boring, isn’t it? It’s just … staying. **All my life I’ve been searching for distractions.** **You were the best distraction** and now I don’t even have you. Because I’ve beaten you.

**Knowing in tragedy**

I have already discussed in [Moriarty as Prophet](http://sherlockedaspergirl.tumblr.com/post/77864244179/moriarty-as-prophet) how foreknowledge in Greek tragedy affords the hero no advantage in preventing heartbreak or death. In other Greek myths, knowledge is not only useless, but outright dangerous.

Prometheus was punished for stealing fire on behalf of mankind, and for teaching them trickery with respect to their sacrifices to the gods, with eternally regrowing his liver each night so that it could be eaten by an eagle each day. He is considered a figure representing human striving for scientific knowledge and the dangerous consequences of overreaching oneself.

Sisyphus had a similar recurring punishment resulting from his cleverness and trickery, endlessly rolling a boulder up a mountain, with the boulder repeatedly falling to be lifted anew. (Sisyphus also cheated death twice, and I will be going into those parallels in another meta.)

In both Prometheus and Sisyphus’s cases, cleverness is punished with recurring pain, hardship, boredom. In a way, it is just an acknowledgement in mythic form that acutely feeling the drudgery of existence is a natural consequence of a very sharp mind. But both stories also serve as a warning to reign in one’s need to know too much.

Pandora was the first woman, given as a gift to Epimetheus, brother of Prometheus, along with a jar containing all “evils, harsh pain and troublesome diseases which give men death”, which she of course was told not to open. When her curiosity got the better of her, these problems escaped the jar. It is often incorrectly repeated that hope was the last thing to escape the jar. In fact, Pandora closed the jar in time to trap only the last of the jar’s contents, _foresight_ , which consequently left humanity with hope. In this story, not only was Pandora’s desire to know detrimental, but also it is recognized that the last item in the jar, foresight, knowledge, would have made all of the other ills so much worse to endure.

**John and not-knowing**

John, by contrast to Sherlock, Jim, and Magnussen, is rather at peace with not knowing many things. He represents not-knowing, but beyond just the kind of not-knowing that comes from conforming. The progression of wisdom is about first moving past the half-truths we are fed, but also continuing past needing to know, into embracing mystery in order to experience love/humanity/the unknowable. John the character may not have made this full development yet, but the symbol of John’s actions as the person who accepts uncertainty and not-knowing follows the pattern from the beginning. Sure, he exhibits a healthy curiosity, he asks questions, participates in trying to solve mysteries, gives his own theories on the cases he and Sherlock work together. But many have also noted how happy he is to blindly follow orders with a lot less questioning than the average person would display.

> JOHN: Jennifer Wilson. That was … Hang on. Wasn’t that the dead woman?
> 
> SHERLOCK: Yes. That’s not important. Just enter the number. Are you doing it?
> 
> JOHN: Yes.

Or again when Sherlock asks for his phone from his own pocket:

John questions these things either not at all, half-heartedly, or after-the-fact. “Why did I just send that text?”, “Sorry, what are we doing? Did I just text a murderer?! What good will that do?” It isn’t knowing things that matters to John (and particularly not foresight), it is only being in the game and part of the action, part of life.

John’s action at the climax of ASiP directly deprives Sherlock of the chance to know, to indulge his addiction. Shooting Jeff Hope forced Sherlock into choosing neither pill, and either pill would have let him escape from not-knowing, the good pill temporarily, the bad pill permanently (that is if there was a good pill). John’s action here was to save his friend, but symbolically the fact that his love for Sherlock took away Sherlock’s power to know something is important here. Loving and knowing everything are incompatible states. Love is a mystery and not the kind that can be solved, but the kind that must be embraced. John calls Sherlock out on the destructive nature of his addiction.

> JOHN: You were gonna take that damned pill, weren’t you?
> 
> SHERLOCK: Course I wasn’t. Biding my time. Knew you’d turn up.
> 
> JOHN: No you didn’t. It’s how you get your kicks, isn’t it? You risk your life to prove you’re clever.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Why would I do that?
> 
> JOHN: **Because you’re an idiot.**

There _are_ things that John burns to know however, they just aren’t facts, science, logic. John gets to the heart of matters, and he wants to know the emotional truths.

> JOHN: You know, for a genius you can be remarkably thick.
> 
> SHERLOCK: What?
> 
> JOHN: **I don’t care how you faked it, Sherlock. I wanna know why.**
> 
> SHERLOCK: Why? Because Moriarty had to be stopped. Oh. ‘Why’ as in … I see. Yes. ‘Why?’ That’s a little more difficult to explain.
> 
> JOHN: I’ve got all night.

Sherlock is bursting to reveal his facts and cleverness, but he is rebuffed. John never hears the answer to how Sherlock faked it (and perhaps, neither do we, the audience), because he throws away his chance to know that set of facts. He brings it up again at the end of the episode, but doesn’t press the _how_ once Sherlock gives him an emotionally satisfying answer to _why_ he returned to London, and to life - “I know. I heard you.” That’s good enough for John.

John will continue to make the choice to renounce the knowledge of facts in favor of emotional truths.

> MARY: Everything about who I was is on there. If you love me, don’t read it in front of me.
> 
> JOHN: Why?
> 
> MARY: Because you won’t love me when you’ve finished … and I don’t want to see that happen.

He is given Pandora’s box. Here it is, she says, all the information, and information is power. Once you know this, you can’t un-know it, you will have power over me, but you will not love me anymore. And he doesn’t read it.

> MARY: So, have you read it?
> 
> JOHN: W-would you come here a moment?
> 
> MARY: No. Tell me. Have you?
> 
> JOHN: Just … come here.
> 
> MARY: No, I’m fine.
> 
> JOHN: I’ve thought long and hard about what I want to say to you. These are prepared words, Mary. I’ve chosen these words with care.
> 
> MARY: Okay.
> 
> JOHN: The problems of your past are your business. The problems of your future … are my privilege.
> 
> JOHN: It’s all I have to say. **It’s all I need to know. No, I didn’t read it.**

  


Tell me you weren’t yelling at John on your screen in this moment. And I will know that you are a liar. I was yelling, gasping, flabbergasted. John’s future could be in danger and saving it could depend on the knowledge in that drive. How can he control the outcome if he refuses to know? But the world of _Sherlock_ is the world of Greek tragedy, where knowledge does not save anyone from pain, heartache, or death. Foresight is forever trapped at the bottom of Pandora’s jar, so there is no use in knowing beforehand, because we can never understand the clues in time to prevent the consequences, anyway. Magnussen would never let a piece of information that crossed his path go unexploited. But Magnussen is a tragic figure, nobody sane would want his fate, even if he had survived - sitting alone in a closet, the world wet to his touch, his only connection to another person his perceived ownership of them. John does not disagree that information is power. He disagrees that relationships should be based on power.

> MAGNUSSEN: Oh, she’s bad, that one. So many dead people. You should see what I’ve seen.
> 
> JOHN: **I don’t need to see it.**
> 
> MAGNUSSEN: You might enjoy it, though. I enjoy it.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Then why don’t you show us?

He doesn’t need the information, he is not interested in the power, and he would not enjoy it. He needs someone to love and protect, and that is what he has chosen. Magnussen enjoys knowing, because knowing is owning. Sherlock enjoys it, too, not for the owning, but for the knowing itself, gets off on it, is addicted to it. But though John has his own addictions, he is not addicted to knowing and controlling. He is aware of what you must give up for knowledge.

So we are shown information as standing in the way of love, and John as being a person who will choose the mysteries of love over the certainties of knowledge.

> Why does man not see things? He is himself standing in the way: he conceals things.
> 
> -Nietzsche -Daybreak

Is it only John who stands in his own way, concealing things so that he does not see? Magnussen says that “It’s all about knowing, everything is” and has thereby concealed the truth from himself so thoroughly that he pays with his life. What about Sherlock, so intent on not only seeing, but observing, everything? Is there a way in which by trying so hard to see everything, he also stands in his own way? Perhaps John knows that human beings will always conceal something from themselves, no matter how hard they may try to see everything, control everything, and he is merely making his choices consciously as to what he will be able to see, and where he will avert his eyes, to avoid being blinded entirely.

Thanks again to [ArianeDeVere ](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/tag/sherlock%20episode%20transcript)for the transcripts.

—-

Next in the series is up now: [Ganymede](http://sherlockedaspergirl.tumblr.com/post/79767792397/ganymede) \- It’s a short one, but I’m already planning something more substantial about fate.


	6. All Lives End, All Hearts Are Broken

Part 6 of the [Tragedy & Nietzsche Series](http://sherlockedaspergirl.tumblr.com/meta). Feel free to jump in here, but if you get muddled, you can start from [the beginning](http://sherlockedaspergirl.tumblr.com/post/77864244179/moriarty-as-prophet) instead, then there is a link to each subsequent part at the end of each one.

**That’s your weakness, you always want everything to be clever**

> Is the resolve to be so scientific about everything perhaps a kind of fear of, an escape from, pessimism? A subtle last resort against - truth? And, morally speaking, a sort of cowardice and falseness? Amorally speaking, a ruse?
> 
> -Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy

I tried to talk about Fate next, but I realized I can’t really discuss it coherently yet without discussing what I find to be the elephant in the room, one of the biggest themes of the story - hubris (pride, overconfidence, arrogance) and its relationship to science in the modern age. I began to see in this adaptation a sort of dismantling of the sacredness of science usually seen in the Sherlock Holmes tradition. It isn’t particularly profound to notice hubris to be one of Sherlock’s most important traits. What I do find fascinating is how this aspect of Sherlock’s personality works in the narrative and in the mythos of Sherlock Holmes in western culture as a whole.

Sherlock Holmes functions in modern times as a mythology of his own, as Greek gods functioned for the Greeks in many ways. He is the most recognizable literary figure, and his name recalls to our minds the curved pipe and deerstalker, the violin and dressing gown, just as a Greek could hear Zeus’s name and would think of his lightning bolts or Pan and imagine his pipes. His powers, however, are scientific, the powers we truly believe in today; he is the embodiment of rational thought. To our modern society, rational thought is the ultimate power, the weapon that can overcome gods and superstitions. However, this ingenious adaptation, I believe, is in the process of subverting that belief system, and returning to an understanding that science and rationality exist within the same world of limits that has always existed, the same tragic world the Greeks inhabited, and are not the answer to overcoming Fate or Death. Fate cannot be overcome and in the end, immortality, the obsession of science, cannot be achieved.

**Hamartia and Hubris**

An idea that is often discussed in the context of Tragedy is the “tragic flaw”. The idea of a tragic flaw is itself flawed, and I would rather use the Greek word Hamartia in my discussion. It is again, like prophecy, a more nuanced concept perhaps than the one we normally talk about in our shorthand for storytelling. It is a broad concept, encompassing both accidental error and moral shortcoming. In the New Testament it is translated as sin, but in literature is often thought of as the “tragic flaw” of a hero. For example, Oedipus was put back in proximity with his birth parents due to his misunderstanding of the prophecy, but had he not been so short-tempered, he would still would not have killed his own father. There is nothing that made Oedipus kill, aside from his own nature. He did not kill the stranger that turned out to be his father in self defense. The concept of hamartia is like the truism “Wherever you go, there you are.” Fate is something ordained from outside of ourselves, from the gods, but it also comes from within ourselves, from our own character, the mistakes we repeatedly make due to our own shortcomings. The ultimate Fate, Death, is both. It comes from outside ourselves, the order of the universe, which is not built to sustain us forever, and from within ourselves, as each of our cells is programed to live only so long and no longer.

In most tragedies, the hamartia includes hubris. Sherlock has this in spades. The problem of hubris is that it irks the gods when you try to put yourself on their level.

> IRENE: D’you know the big problem with a disguise, Mr. Holmes? However hard you try, it’s always a self-portrait.
> 
> SHERLOCK: You think I’m a vicar with a bleeding face?
> 
> IRENE: No, I think you’re damaged, delusional, and believe in a **higher power.** **In your case, it’s yourself.**

And there are multiple examples where he himself recognizes that he is not in control of his hubristic behaviour. In THoB when interviewing Henry Knight:

> JOHN: Not now, Sherlock.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Oh please. I’ve been cooped up in here for ages.
> 
> JOHN: You’re just showing off.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Of course. **I** **am a show-off. That’s what we do.**

There is a fatalistic turn here. Dying is what people (mortals) do, showing off is what show-offs do. That’s just the way it is. And after being held in contempt of court in TRF:

> JOHN: What did I say? I said, “Don’t get clever.”
> 
> SHERLOCK: I can’t just turn it on and off like a tap.

Showing off is like breathing to Sir-Boast-a-Lot, the Dragon Slayer, the Reichenbach Hero. He recognizes the destructiveness of this need to show off in others, but misses it in himself.

> JOHN: Where are we going?
> 
> SHERLOCK: Northumberland Street’s a five-minute walk from here.
> 
> JOHN: You think he’s stupid enough to go there?
> 
> SHERLOCK: No – I think he’s brilliant enough. I love the brilliant ones. They’re always so desperate to get caught.
> 
> JOHN: Why?
> 
> SHERLOCK: Appreciation! Applause! At long last the spotlight. **That’s the frailty of genius, John: it needs an audience.**
> 
> JOHN: Yeah.

Showing off is the intersection of hubris and Sherlock’s other weakness, his love of complexity. An audience is so much better if there is something really entertaining to show them, and it has to be really clever.

> JIM: No, no, no, no, no, this is too easy. This is too easy. There is no key, DOOFUS! Those digits are meaningless. They’re utterly meaningless. You don’t really think a couple of lines of computer code are gonna crash the world around our ears? I’m disappointed.  I’m disappointed in you, ordinary Sherlock.
> 
> SHERLOCK: But the rhythm …
> 
> JIM: “Partita number one.” Thank you, Johann Sebastian Bach.
> 
> SHERLOCK: But then how did …
> 
> JIM: Then how did I break into the Bank, to the Tower, to the Prison? Daylight robbery. All it takes is some willing participants. I knew you’d fall for it. **That’s your weakness – you always want everything to be clever.** Now, shall we finish the game?

**Cheating death with science: the “coming[singularity](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2048299,00.html)”**

Science as a belief system is becoming it’s own religion, with it’s own gods, based on fictional characters and living humans, from Sherlock Holmes to Steven Hawking. It has it’s own dogmas that one cannot question without angering it’s practitioners. I am not innocent in this respect. When climate change deniers try to talk to me about their beliefs that humans are not causing the current ecological crisis, I am impatient and often not particularly friendly. However, my methods are not truly that different from theirs, I have merely chosen more reliable experts as intermediaries on whose opinion to base my conclusions. I am not some unbiased observer that has the facts and the ability to synthesize them myself to come to such a complex conclusion. I have to rely on faith as well.

Continuing with the example of global ecological disaster, there are a couple of ways that people who accept that it is happening propose to deal with it. I am in the camp that advocates acknowledging the natural limits of our ecosystem and looking for ways that we can limit ourselves so that we can make choices about how those limits will affect us as humans. Deniers are against limits because they do not see any consequences coming, often because as practitioners of religions other than science, they believe that another god has us well in hand, and that humans do not have the power to have made such a mess in the first place. However, people who interact with science as a religion believe that technology will provide a way out of the trouble. Continue without limits, they say, because by the time consequences catch up to us, we will have devised new power sources, or carbon-capturing devices, or even interplanetary and interstellar travel, and will not have to face the music.

But the most obvious way in which science is becoming a religion is that it has begun to promise immortality to the faithful. The discipline of [futurology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurology) is an attempt to predict (and arguably to thereby control) future technology and other trends. Prominent futurists, or futurologists, are now preaching a “coming singularity”, a time when artificial intelligence will progress beyond human intelligence, and human brains can be uploaded into the cloud, allowing humans to achieve immortality as machines. These futurists believe that this is a unique time to be alive, that once the technological singularity is reached, death will be overcome. It is not that different from the Rapture if you squint.

I cannot contradict them, I do not have the Foresight, since it is still trapped in Pandora’s jar, and I am just a flawed human. I can however be very, very afraid of what might happen if they turn out to be correct.

Sherlock addresses the idea of scientists playing god in THoB:

> STAPLETON: It was the GFP gene from a jellyfish, in case you’re interested.
> 
> JOHN: What?
> 
> STAPLETON: In the rabbits.
> 
> JOHN: Mmm, right, yes.
> 
> STAPLETON: Aequoria Victoria, if you really want to know.
> 
> JOHN: **Why?**
> 
> STAPLETON: **Why not? We don’t ask questions like that here. It isn’t done.** There was a mix-up, anyway. My daughter ended up with one of the lab specimens, so poor Bluebell had to go.
> 
> JOHN: Your compassion’s overwhelming.
> 
> STAPLETON: I know. **I hate myself sometimes.**
> 
> JOHN: So, come on then. You can trust me – I’m a doctor. What else have you got hidden away up here?
> 
> STAPLETON: **Listen: if you can imagine it, someone is probably doing it somewhere. Of course they are.**
> 
> JOHN: And cloning?
> 
> STAPLETON: Yes, of course. Dolly the Sheep, remember?
> 
> JOHN: Human cloning?
> 
> STAPLETON: **Why not?**
> 
> JOHN: What about animals? Not sheep … big animals.
> 
> STAPLETON: Size isn’t a problem, not at all. **The only limits are ethics and the law, and both those things can be … very flexible.** But not here – not at Baskerville.

Science out of control nearly drives Henry Knight to suicide, after having killed his father. Stapleton makes it clear that limits are not observed when it comes to the pursuit of scientific knowledge. Knowledge is sought unquestioningly.

**Cheating death in literature: Sisyphus, Prometheus, & Faust**

Is this such a unique time to be alive? Is immortality through cleverness a new endeavour? Maybe if we study what has come before, there may be thinkers who have thought through these questions, stories that can offer us guidance through these very dilemmas. Maybe the Final Problem is actually an ancient problem, and humans have always been obsessed with Stayin’ Alive.

I would like to return now to Sisyphus, who I discussed in terms of his punishment in [Part 3](http://sherlockedaspergirl.tumblr.com/post/78572208305/suicidal-seductions-and-eternal-recurrence-of-the-same) of this series. What I did not discuss before is why Sisyphus is being punished at all. Sisyphus, like our hero, Sherlock, cheated death twice. The first time, Thanatos (Death) tried to chain him, and Sisyphus tricked him and trapped him with his own chains. Likewise, It appeared in Sherlock’s first “death” that Moriarty is the one that got caught in the trap, the one that committed suicide. But in Sisyphus’s story, Death could not remain chained, because no one could die while Death was trapped. The old and sick were suffering, so the gods rectified the situation. The second time he knew he had to die, Sisyphus instructed his wife to leave the coins off of his eyes, so that he had no payment to cross the river Styx. He convinced Persephone to let him return to earth to tell his wife off for not giving him a proper burial. Sherlock’s second death involved returning from an underworld of sorts as well, clawing his way back up the staircase to life. He may also have obliquely had the help of Mary, John’s wife, in determining the circumstances of his death such that he might return. Once back in Corinth Sisyphus refused to return to the underworld, but he was forced there anyway eventually, twice cheating death does not make one immortal. He is given his punishment, and it is a punishment for his hubris, but it also in a way a recognition that Boredom is a natural consequence of being too clever, and in real life a clever person does not have to wait until Hades to experience this “punishment”. It is also an expression that being cleverest, as Sherlock strives to be, is a role in which you can never rest, as Sisyphus can never rest, because you must compete against everyone always. Take this delightful little exchange for example:

> SHERLOCK: I didn’t know you spoke Serbian.
> 
> MYCROFT: I didn’t, but the language has a Slavic root, frequent Turkish and German loan words. Took me a couple of hours.
> 
> SHERLOCK: Hmm – **you’re slipping.**
> 
> MYCROFT : **Middle age** **,** brother mine. **Comes to us all.**

The boulder slips back down the hill, aging and mortality affect even the cleverest men. A couple of hours would be a major accomplishment for an ordinary person, but being as clever as the Holmes boys brings with it a weight like a boulder, and it is always slipping. The dialogue comes along with an image of Sherlock being shaved, grooming being a repetitive maintenance task of ordinary life that must be repeated over and over, as soon as it is shaved, the hair starts growing all over again.

Prometheus is another Greek who suffers eternal, repetitive punishment for his cleverness, as well as for sharing cleverness and trickery with humankind. His name means Foresight, adding to the tragedy of his situation, because unlike man, who does not understand both before he has heard and after he has heard, Prometheus went to his fate with his eyes open. He always knew what his punishment would be for his actions, but that did not change his behavior. He stole fire for humanity and taught them to cheat the gods in their sacrifices to them, and so was punished by having his liver eaten each day by an eagle, regenerating by night due to his immortality. He is a symbol of humans’ striving for scientific progress, and of the danger of overreaching.

I would like to move on now from Greece to Nietzsche’s home, Germany. There is a lovely tragic figure here who fits the discussion of thirst for scientific knowledge and immortality, and the dangers that those pursuits bring, the German legend of Faust. There are innumerable versions and reworkings of this christian myth, but the basic facts are these: Faust is a scholar who becomes bored and depressed. He attempts suicide (a major theme of Sherlock), and then makes a deal with the devil (where have I heard that before?) for more knowledge and power. The bargain in Faust’s case is that the devil’s representative, Mephistopheles, will serve Faust for 24 years, at the end of which, the devil takes his soul. In Goethe’s reworking of the legend, Mephistopheles will serve Faust until he experiences a moment of sublime happiness, which Faust does not expect ever to happen, and then take his soul. This version therefore hints at a possibility of immortality along with the supreme knowledge and power, but of course, the possibility of immortality is an illusion.

Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy, argues against relying on science for fulfillment and invokes Faust in doing so. Although today we hold up Greek civilization as the beginnings of our ideals of rationality, such ideals were only a rather late development in Greek thought, and doing so misses vast swaths of the wisdom available from studying the Greeks.

> Our whole modern world is entangled in the net of Alexandrian culture. It proposes as its ideal the theoretical man equipped with the greatest of forces of knowledge, and laboring in the service of science, whose archetype and progenitor is Socrates…..How unintelligible must Faust, the modern cultured man, who is in himself intelligible, have appeared to a true Greek.

He imagines an overly scientific culture eventually evolving into one that again embraces tragedy in tandem with science:

> Let us imagine a coming generation with such intrepidity of vision, with such a heroic penchant for the tremendous; let us imagine the bold stride of these **dragon-slayers** , the proud audacity with which they turn their back on all the weakling’s doctrines of optimism in order to ‘live resolutely’ in wholeness and fullness: would it not be necessary for the tragic man of such a culture, in view of his self-education for seriousness and terror, to desire a new art, the art of metaphysical comfort, to desire tragedy as his own proper Helen, and to exclaim with Faust:
> 
> Should not my longing overleap the distance
> 
> And draw the fairest form into existence?

Here the dragon-slayers are those people that embrace science while simultaneously understanding tragedy as well. Nietzsche is not anti-science, but instead critiques science where it blinds us to other truths.

I believe that BBC Sherlock is making a Nietzschean and mythological/tragic critique of the limits of science. The show creators are obviously huge nerds who love science and rationality and the character of Sherlock Holmes as originally written. But it is also obvious to me that we are being shown the limits where science as a metaphysics - as a framework to sustain human life and aspirations - breaks down. To return to my beginning quote, Nietzsche wonders if being too scientific is a type of escape or a ruse, and I definitely see Sherlock using it as such. His “cowardice and falseness”, his “subtle last resort against truth” is the fiction that he can will himself to be a machine and thus escape the tragedy that “all lives end, all hearts are broken”. Sherlock is falling prey to the same myth as the futurist proponents of the singularity faith, the idea that becoming a  machine can save one from the tragedies inherent in human life, with its  built in limits - mortality and fragile hearts.A machine can live on scientific knowledge alone, but a human is more than a brain and its transport, a human is also a heart and a soul. And most importantly, a human is mortal, which is the tragedy that gives meaning to human life - it’s not “just……. staying”. It’s slipping, it’s falling, it’s breaking. It’s mortal.

—————————-

Thanks for reading!

[[x]](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/tag/sherlock%20episode%20transcript) (transcripts as usual)


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